Aachen validated several characteristics of urban warfare which were valid regardless of what army was participating in the battle. These included the need for tanks, the requirement to use small combined-arms assault teams, the amount of time necessary to capture a city from a skilled and determined enemy, and the important role of the battles outside the city to ensure success inside the city. It also identified some aspects of urban warfare which were unique to American forces. American forces tended to substitute firepower for manpower, and though they did not change their operating methods, they did make plans for the civilian population even though it was considered hostile.
One of the uniquely American characteristics was the substitution whenever possible of firepower for manpower. The US forces made liberal use of artillery and airpower whenever possible. This permitted the Americans to conduct very intensive offensive operations without a major numerical advantage in infantry. Although American infantry did not outnumber their adversary, they made up for numerical parity with lavish quantities of artillery and airpower and virtually limitless supplies of munitions. This not only reduced the number of infantry required, it also reduced the number of casualties incurred by the attacking force.
The liberal use of firepower by the Americans would also seem to equate to a disregard for civilian casualties equivalent to the attitudes of the Germans and Soviets on the Eastern Front, but this was not the case. Though the Americans did not change their operational approach to account for civilian casualties, they made a major effort to remove civilians from the battle area once they came under American control. Civil Affairs specialists were positioned immediately behind the battle area to take charge of the civilian population, process it, and evacuate the population to camps under army control. Thus, though US forces in Aachen placed concern for enemy civilian casualties as a lower priority than mission accomplishment, it was still a priority of the command.
When the 26th Infantry Regiment assaulted Aachen on October 13, the two infantry battalions in the attack were outnumbered by Colonel Wilck’s defenders at least three to one. Despite all the advantages that the Americans had in airpower, the odds on the ground should have favored the German defense. That the American infantry were successful, and at a relatively low cost in casualties, was astounding. The success of the attack can be attributed to the application of a variety of urban fighting techniques, blended in a near-perfect combination by the soldiers of the US 2nd Armored Division, and 30th and 1st Infantry Divisions with their supporting units. Aachen demonstrated that it was very possible to capture a relatively large urban area, heavily defended by good-quality troops, with a comparatively small number of infantry.
Comparison with Stalingrad
The major difference between the American approach to Aachen and the German approach to Stalingrad was the use of maneuver to set favorable conditions for urban battle. The Americans fought and maneuvered outside of the city to isolate the city from support before reducing it. This greatly reduced the burden on the battalions that eventually assaulted the city center. Because the city was isolated, the Americans could choose to attack the city from any number of directions. In contrast, the Germans had to defend everywhere. Because the city was isolated, the Americans could attack the city from the east, when the city’s defenses were designed to protect from attacks from the west. Finally, because the city was isolated, the psychological stress on the defenders was significantly greater than on the attackers. These were all advantages that the Americans had at Aachen, and that the Germans did not have at Stalingrad. This aspect of the American approach to Aachen demonstrated the ideal operational conditions for city fighting: don’t fight for the city until you control access to the city. Despite the simplicity of this concept, subsequent chapters will show that its application is not always obvious to modern armies, or easy for them to achieve.
CHAPTER 4
URBAN WARFARE FROM THE SEA
Inchon and Seoul, 1950
After World War II the American military jettisoned the vast bulk of the superb ground force that had fought and won the war. By 1950 that force was a hollow shell of its former self. The only remaining remnants of the combat-experienced ground forces were the non-commissioned officer and officer leadership of the skeleton divisions that remained in the force. The bulk of the force in 1950 was draftees with no experience, and in some cases their equipment wasn’t even the best of the World War II equipment. In the late summer of 1950, this force found itself in the midst of another large-scale urban battle against a wholly unanticipated foe in a theater of operations that many Americans had never heard of and would have a hard time finding on a map.
A Hot Cold War
In June 1950 the forces of Communist North Korea launched a surprise attack on the forces of South Korea. The military forces of the North, well trained and equipped by the Soviet Union, vastly outnumbered those of the South. In addition, though there were US Army advisors with the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) military, the US vision for the ROK Army (ROKA) was as a large military police force; which meant that there were no heavy weapons, tanks, heavy artillery or antitank weapons among the small South Korean force. Because of this, and the surprise of the attack, the North Korea People’s Army (KPA) was very successful, and in just six weeks managed to push the combined South Korean and American defenders back to a small perimeter at the toe of Korea around the important port city of Pusan.
At the end of the first week of the surprise attack, the US military entered the war decisively on the side of South Korea. The most effective and responsive weapon that the US had in Asia was the US Air Force, and air attacks against the advancing North Korean columns began on June 27. However, air attacks could slow, but not stop the North Korean advance. Therefore, the US Eighth Army, stationed in Japan, began to deploy to Korea. The problem was that the Eighth Army in 1950 was a shadow of the great American army that had fought its way across the Pacific Ocean under General Douglas MacArthur during World War II. Still under MacArthur’s command — MacArthur was the Supreme Commander Allied Powers in Japan, and Commander US Forces Far East — the Eighth Army was greatly debilitated by post-World War II defense cuts. The Eighth Army had four divisions organized into two corps. However, each of the army’s infantry divisions comprised only two regiments instead of the doctrinal three. Likewise, each regiment had only two battalions, and each battalion only two companies. Similarly, division artillery was reduced to two battalions, all the medium and heavy artillery had been removed from the force at all levels, and each battalion only had two firing batteries of light howitzers. The medium-tank battalions supporting each infantry division was similarly reduced to light-tank battalions of only two companies each. Finally, if the numbers alone were not bad enough, budget and facility constraints greatly inhibited training, leaving the units in a poor state of readiness. Though a formidable force on paper, the Eighth Army and all its subordinate forces were in reality only about 50 percent as capable as the World War II version of the army. This army was thrown as fast as possible into the path of the advancing North Koreans.
General Walton Walker commanded the combined US and South Korean armies on the peninsula. In the last weeks of August 1950 he managed to stem the North Korean onslaught around the city of Pusan. However, in the first eight weeks of the war the Communists captured over 80 percent of the land of South Korea. Clearly, Walker and his commander, General Douglas MacArthur, could not sit passively on the defensive. As early as the end of July, as Walker fought desperately to maintain a toehold in Korea, General MacArthur was thinking in terms of a counterstroke.